Revisiting the bad old days of computer games

I've been regularly playing games on home computers for a little over 20 years now (and boy, does that statement make me feel old). From that very first Amiga 500, through the days of DOS (with manual configuration of sound and video adapters on every game), and all the "joys" of Windows from 3.1 to XP, I've watched as games evolved from mostly "coded by a hobbyist on odd weekends" to "multi-million dollar professional development teams". Whatever you want to say about the blanding of games over that time frame, you did get a fairly steady improvement in how likely it was that you would be able to play the game you bought.

Up until now, Steam (a service I've mentioned in past posts) has been, to me, the pinnacle of that progression. Sure, the service had some fits and starts at launch, and it doesn't do well for those who don't/can't have an Internet connection, but it's a mature service that promises one simple thing: buy from us, and, supposing your computer meets the minimum requirements of the game, it will install and run at least as smoothly as the version you buy from the store, if not better. In fact, there are even some games (Half Life jumps to mind) where the boxed version is unplayable under current versions of Windows, but it plays and runs just fine from Steam.

So, I was a little surprised to see that Bethesda Softworks (the people behind Fallout 3, which I wrote up earlier) had released a few older games on Steam... or rather, one game in particular. You see, along with Oblivion and Morrowind (a pair of fine RPGs, fantasy games whose core mechanics are greatly reflected in Fallout 3), there's a title called Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. I remember, back in the day, thinking it might be a fun game (if memory serves, it came out after Morrowind but before Oblivion)... only to reluctantly pass on it as the reviews came in, praising the concept but panning the execution, particularly the game's stability. Now, here it was in front of me again, up to Steam's standards for putting out on the market, and for a mere $15.

Naturally, I bit. After the first download, the game was unlaunchable, instead pulling up an "Engine" folder. A link within the Steam client let me find the official website for the game, still available after all these years, with several new posts in the forums about people buying the game through Steam and having the same problem I did. Suggested fixes included manually editing your registry, downloading CPU-specific patches from random sites, and installing a fan-made patch on the game, to take care of the worst of the problems.

I opted instead to re-download the game... and at least got something that would launch. Start a game, watch some cutscenes... and watch the game crash as it tries to enter the game proper. I played with various machine settings, turning off video card features and killing other resident programs... which got me to the point of being able to play the first, "introductory" scenario. Apart from one crash while trying to save the game, it seemed to be working alright... until I finished that introductory scenario, got another extended cutscene to lead into the "real game", and another crash while waiting to get started playing. Of course, I retried later, just to make sure it wasn't some sort of fluke, and got the same results.

So, long story short... if Steam had any standards in place before putting games up on their systems for purchase, they're gone now, so caveat emptor is the name of the game. In particular, don't bother trying to purchase Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth from them, either... Steam's installer has problems, the game has problems, and in neither case are they problems of the "quick fix" variety. Heck, if I ever see a patch that fixes this game's problems come through Steam, I'll gladly post a "my bad, Steam's not all that bad" message here... but don't go holding your breath on that one.